


Lion

by jerseydevious



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Bruce Wayne Gets a Hug, Gen, Reunions, light stabbings and tomato soup were had
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 09:19:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19104208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jerseydevious/pseuds/jerseydevious
Summary: Alfred sees Bruce for the first time since Bruce left for his training.





	Lion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [audreycritter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/gifts).



> Ahahahahahaha I'm back, I'm so sorry about that. This is cheesy. It's really cheesy.

Outside the thunder rolled and shook the windows and the gale-winds beat the frame of Wayne Manor in; peals of rain lit against the roof,  _ patpitpatpitpat,  _ not unlike the sound of gunfire. Alfred had always found thunderstorms in the Manor distasteful; it made the old mansion seem frail, the way it gave beneath the weather. The sound seemed to echo forever in the empty space—and it had never been emptier than now. 

 

It was six seventeen in the evening. He ought to have been up, by now, preparing for his dinner. He had a schedule to keep. Recently it had been harder and harder to keep that schedule, so fond was he of digression—so he’d taken to writing it down in his wispy cursive and pinning it to the refrigerator. Every time he looked at it he pretended not to remember that there was a boy somewhere in the world that wrote in a cursive hand just like Alfred’s. Every time he looked at it he pretended not to remember a boy that used to trace over Alfred’s carefully-penned notations with an eye hungry for detail. All of the empty spaces in this blasted old house would drive him mad. 

 

Alfred pulled himself up and rested his book (of which he could not even remember the title—he spent his hours here sitting and staring into the fireplace more often than not) on the arm of the chair. It had gotten dark without his notice—the room was lit only by the dimming fire.  _ Keep the lights on, _ Bruce had told him, before he’d left. 

 

Alfred reached for the fire poker and stoked the fire, lifting a log off of the wrought iron rack and dropping it on the flame. Then he left, and when he left he kept his back perfectly straight and his face perfectly poised despite the fact that he lived here alone and had for half a decade, despite the fact that something deep in his soul was aching and had been for some time, now. 

 

Once he’d made it down to the kitchen, through a great many claps of thunder that left his hands shaking and the white-hot memories of his service branded to the backs of his eyelids, he strained two tins of diced tomatoes and spread them over a baking pan. He seasoned them quickly—salt, pepper. The problem, he supposed, was that he had so little else to occupy his time aside from his weary memory and the boy he held dear to him; so little to think about, so little to do. Raising Bruce had been its own trial by fire, and without him it seemed—it seemed—

 

Empty spaces, and rooms getting dark without his notice. 

  
  


Alfred slid the tray of tomatoes into the oven. After a few seconds, he remembered he hadn’t preheated the oven, and he pulled them back out and twisted the dial on the stove, feeling foolish and blushing beet red to the roots of the hair he had left. He pulled a chair out from the kitchen island and sat, hands folded primly in his lap, staring firmly at the stove before him. 

 

Three weeks ago, he’d gotten a call from Bruce—they came irregularly, and not extremely often, but they did come, and Alfred treasured them immensely—but he’d gotten a call, and Bruce had said in a rough voice,  _ I’ll be home in a week, probably. To stay for a bit. There’s more I need to do, but I’m coming home. Christ, Alfred, I’ve got so much to tell you. Just give me a week. I’m sorry I haven’t called lately.  _ He’d hung up before Alfred had even gotten a startled  _ hullo _ in. Three weeks ago, and Bruce had not appeared in even a single gossip rag, and Bruce was rather fond of pulling stunts that landed himself in them. 

 

Something pounded at the kitchen door. Alfred jolted and nearly fell out of his chair; but, convinced it was thunder, shook himself and resettled into his chair. The door to the kitchen led to a small patio where the Waynes had been fond of taking their meals on warm spring nights; it overlooked a now derelict vegetable garden and, across an expanse of lawn, the conservatory, housed at the end of the West wing. 

 

In a moment the door clicked and swung open, and a man stood at the other side of the door, holding lockpicking tools in his hands. “I know I’ve probably pissed you off,” he said, “but you could’ve at least opened the door.” 

 

Alfred held a hand over his mouth. “Bruce,” he said, weakly, and he wanted nothing more than to fling himself into his boy’s arms and hold him forever, but he found he couldn’t move, found he was bound by some immovable force. He could only sit and stare; Bruce had left him tall and scrawny, and Alfred had sworn Bruce would always look like a willow switch of a man, but here he was, twice Alfred’s width and even taller than when he’d left. Strong as an oak.  _ I missed it all,  _ Alfred thought.  _ He grew up and I missed it all. _

 

Bruce’s mouth had twisted downwards and he looked away from Alfred, staring at the floor. God in heaven, he even had  _ stubble _ on his chin, something Alfred hadn’t seen on him since before he’d taught Bruce how to shave—even then it had been patchy, hardly more than puppy fluff.

 

“Sorry,” Bruce said. He dropped a black duffel bag on the floor, and shook his head like a dog getting out of a bath, flinging water droplets everywhere. “I should—I should go. Sorry to drop in, randomly, uh, have fun with your—tomatoes?”

 

“Step one foot out of that door right now and I’ll never let you leave me again,” Alfred said, voice scarcely a whisper. He stood on unsteady legs and moved to cup Bruce’s cheeks, tilting his head back and forth like he was seeing it for the first time—and in many ways, he was. There was a fresh pink scar through the left eyebrow, an older, paler one at the hairline. There was color to his skin, a mark of long days spent beneath the sun, and a knot in the bridge of the nose like it had been broken at least once, perhaps several times. Cauliflower ear on either side, just the beginnings of it. His boy had become a fighter while he wasn’t looking.

 

“You are a young man,” Alfred said quietly. “Oh, my boy. You grew up.”

 

The corner of Bruce’s mouth quirked up. “Not that much.” 

 

“Nonsense. I could hardly recognize you. You’ll be needing—you’ll be needing a whole new wardrobe, my, my—” 

 

Bruce’s hand came up and cupped one of Alfred’s wrists, rubbing his thumb over the vulnerable inside of it. “I’m not staying that long. Not yet. I just, I. I guess I… wanted—to come back.” 

 

“I missed you, too, my dear boy.” Alfred patted his cheek once, and then lowered his hands, snagging Bruce’s duffel. “Change. Change, and change quickly. I wish to hug you but I absolutely refuse to be soaked in whatever filth you are dragging about.” 

 

Bruce laughed. It was a wonderful sound that left Alfred silent and rooted to the spot, capable of living only in that moment. Bruce took the duffel from Alfred’s hands and disappeared through the door. It was a small loss of him but a loss that felt like a knife to the chest. 

 

Hurriedly, Alfred pulled down another two cans of tomatoes and strained them, seasoning them and drizzling them with olive oil. He slid the whole pan into the oven, and took a saucepan out of the cabinet, flicking the right eye of the stove on and pouring the olive oil into the pan straight from the bottle. He gathered a row of ingredients and set them above his cutting board neatly, and then he began to dice celery. 

 

“Al?”

 

Alfred jumped. The knife landed on the board with a thud. “My God, child, you’re even sneakier than before.”

 

Bruce leaned his forehead against Alfred’s shoulder from behind. “I trained with some… forest ninjas.” Alfred chuckled, but Bruce did not. 

 

“Oh, no. You’re serious,” Alfred said. 

 

“I’ve been doing weird things, Al.” 

 

“Everything you do is odd,” Alfred said, moving on to peeling a carrot. “But I love you no less.”

 

Arms wrapped around Alfred’s waist and squeezed. An inkling of a thought occurred to Alfred, and he paused, dropping the knife. “Lift your head,” he said. Bruce did so, and Alfred felt his forehead. “You’ve a temperature.”

 

“Probably the infection,” Bruce mumbled. 

 

“The what,” Alfred hissed. 

 

“Uh, sinus infection.”

 

Alfred turned from his peeled carrots. “I implore you not to lie to me, sir.”

 

Bruce’s eyebrows bunched together and he scowled harshly. “It’s fine, Al. I can take care of myself.” 

 

“I bloody well know you can,” Alfred said. “You have spent half a decade proving this to me. But you are under our roof, in our home, and you will allow me to care for you. Now, I ask you, and you  _ will no _ t lie to me—what infection?”

 

Bruce crossed his arms and stared hard at the floor. “I got stabbed in Atlanta, on the way up here. I was being an idiot. And I didn’t get a chance to change the dressing on the bus.” 

 

“Stabbed,” Alfred said, voice paper thin. “Stabbed. My boy,  _ stabbed. _ Off your feet, get in one of those chairs. We’ll talk about these—stabbings, these _ —ninjas— _ after you are fed, that wound is cleaned, and you’ve had some rest. But you will know that I do not approve.” 

 

“I don’t particularly care if you  _ approve,” _ Bruce snarled. “I have reasons for doing this, alright—”

 

“The only reasons you need are to  _ not get killed!”  _ Alfred snapped. “Do you pay any mind to what would happen if you were to get yourself killed out there? Do you ever consider, even momentarily, that I do not want to  _ lose you, _ do you  _ ever—” _

 

“I do,” Bruce cut in. His voice was soft, the way fine bits of broken glass are. “All the time. I think about it all the time. But I know what I’m doing, and I know I have to do it anyway. I’m sorry, Al.” 

 

“It would not hurt me,” Alfred said, mincing garlic with perhaps too much force, “it would  _ devastate  _ me, my boy. You will never know what it is like to have the boy  _ you raised _ come home with a stab wound, infected, knowing your boy, that you raised, is in mortal peril. I cannot be the—guardian of a  _ dead child.” _

 

“This is for Gotham,” Bruce said, again, his voice painfully soft. “Just trust me. It’s bigger than me. It’s bigger than us. It’s my life, and mine to risk.” 

 

“How is your  _ deathwish _ about this hellish city,” Alfred hissed. He slid his cut vegetables into the saucepan, and gave it a toss, before leaning against the counter by the stove and glaring at his idiot boy. His heart was hammering as if he were running for his life—perhaps in a way he was arguing for his life, for the precious life before him he considered his world.

 

Bruce had thankfully sat down, and pulled a chair up to prop his socked feet in. He looked more comfortable than when he had arrived, in a threadbare longsleeve shirt and obviously cheap sweatpants that Alfred would have ordinarily curled his lip at—his hair was drying, also, fluffing up rather ridiculously. Alfred could not keep his eyes off of him, could not stop his mind from cataloguing the hundreds of small changes. Bruce’s knuckles were thick and scarred, now, some of his fingers bent oddly, and a few of his nails looked as if they had been ripped off and were just now growing back. 

 

But it was the look on Bruce’s face that pierced him through-and-through; watchful and knowing at the same time, like he had aged twenty years in the last five. 

 

“It’s not a deathwish,” Bruce said, carefully. “Death is just a possible outcome.” 

 

Alfred closed his eyes. A lump of ice had solidified in his throat. “Just a possible outcome,” he said, hoarsely. 

 

“Yes,” Bruce said, somewhat impatient. “Listen to me. The justice system in Gotham is broken. This city is overrun by the greedy, and it’s punishing innocent people. We need something better. That’s what I’m preparing for.” 

 

Alfred blew out a long breath through his nose. “I suppose you are not preparing for a particularly cutthroat venture in politics.” 

 

Bruce’s face twisted in disgust. “You know Gotham politics are filled with people with blood on their hands. I won’t be party to that system.”

 

Alfred swallowed. “Later,” he said. “Later, we will discuss this like gentlemen. I think… certain tensions are too high, for now.” 

 

Bruce nodded. “But, Al?” 

 

“Yes?”

 

“I’m not going to stop, not even for you,” Bruce said, grimly. “Not for anyone.”

 

Though he was simply lounging in a chair, injured, fevered, he reminded Alfred of a challenging lion. No longer a cub, but a snarling, frothing-at-the-mouth big cat, teeth bared and baying at the setting sun. The kind of fighting beast coveted by Rome; Alfred recalled the great insult of Caesar appropriating Cassius’s lions, in a book he had once thumbed through.

 

Alfred finished the soup quickly and set a steaming bowl in front of Bruce, whose eyes were as wide as saucers—he started inhaling it as soon as Alfred’s hand was clear.    
  


“It’s hot,” Alfred warned, amused. 

 

“It’s good,” Bruce corrected, mouth full. A thin stream of soup dribbled down his chin.

 

Alfred sighed. “And where have your manners gone.” But he was hiding a smile of his own.

 

It seemed, with Bruce’s size, his appetite had grown as well—Alfred had anticipated leftovers, but Bruce worked his way through the whole pot and sat back with a smile on his face and his eyes closed. 

 

“I missed your cooking,” he said.

 

Alfred rose and collected his bowl, laying it in the sink. “The wound.” 

 

“It’s nothing,” Bruce said. He rolled up his shirt anyway and peeled off a yellowing, blood-stained dressing, revealing a three-inch cut in his side, stitched and festering with pus and dried blood. 

 

Alfred coughed. “Nothing,” he said. “Oh, child.” 

 

Alfred all but ran upstairs for his field kit, the one he kept stocked because some animalistic part of his brain would always fear the worst. He cleaned and dressed the wound quickly. Bruce didn’t so much as grunt, and something hard, cold, and sharp settled in Alfred’s gut.

 

“You are far too used to this for my liking,” Alfred said. He stood, and one of his knees popped loudly. 

 

“You’re too old for my liking,” Bruce said, leaning forward until his head was laid against Alfred’s chest. 

 

Alfred swatted his ear. “Cheek. I’ll ring Leslie. You’ll need antibiotics.”

 

“She’s back from Africa?”

 

“She has been for a while, sir.” 

 

“Hn.”

 

Alfred ran his hands through Bruce’s hair, rubbing circles into the back of Bruce’s neck with his thumb. “I missed you, Bruce.” 

 

“I missed you, too,” Bruce mumbled. 

 

Tomorrow Alfred would try to talk some sense into Bruce, though he had a sneaking suspicion that Bruce would refuse to listen; and in half an hour, Alfred would ring Leslie and have her make a house call that would likely end in shouts ringing off the walls in time with the storm; but for now, Alfred was content to hold his boy and feel the rise and fall of his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for checking it out!


End file.
